No EFI on vista... yet

[neufuse Veteran]

Well after talking to some MS developers on the windows team, it turns out vista build 5270 does NOT have EFI enabled on it... to quote one of them "That is a known bug. EFI is not enabled yet. It doesn't look like it will be fixed for Beta 2" so this is why we can not boot it on a mac yet, it's not because mac wont support it, it is just because Microsoft hasn't enabled it yet!

They also say internally they have it running on a Intel Mac already with the build that does support EFI! so looks like by the time RTM comes around we will be able to boot it on a mac when EFI is enabled on the vista boot cd and in vista... they said it doesnt even work on the DVD yet, so the people that where "booting" too the cd were not booting through EFI, but the stub they put in place for EFI which does nothing so far besides show a "press a key to boot from cd" message

[Lasker]

interesting read, thanks for the info

[BigBunny]

"That is a known bug. EFI is not enabled yet. It doesn't look like it will be fixed for Beta 2"

Gee, EFI support sounds like one of those core OS features that definitely needs to be integrated by a beta 2 release. Does that make B2 non feature complete, even if it is a feature like Sideshow that can't be used on any *regular* PC yet?

[neufuse Veteran]

Gee, EFI support sounds like one of those core OS features that definitely needs to be integrated by a beta 2 release. Does that make B2 non feature complete, even if it is a feature like Sideshow that can't be used on any *regular* PC yet?

well EFI can't be used on regular PC's yet either.. .only intel 975x boards and mac's support it and 975x's are disabled by default too.. so not having it yet is no big deal

[Mr. Dee]

This is interesting, no wonder. Its one of the reasons why I have put off my purchase on an iMac Core Duo, the other is the Core Duo does not have any 64-bit Extensions. But here's the question thats bothering me, Windows XP Professional x64 supports EFI, it should at least be bootable then display a warning message about the processor not being 64 bit enabled.

[notuptome2004]

i wonder what kind of interface EFI will have since it replaces the bios it be nice to see what things ya can change and do with it for motherboard features and customization

[Nexus-]

This is interesting, no wonder. Its one of the reasons why I have put off my purchase on an iMac Core Duo, the other is the Core Duo does not have any 64-bit Extensions. But here's the question thats bothering me, Windows XP Professional x64 supports EFI, it should at least be bootable then display a warning message about the processor not being 64 bit enabled.

well its IA64 xp (itanium) not the amd64 xp that supports efi and the 64bit warning shows up before the press any key to boot to cd. its somehow part of that loader. (if i remeber correctly)

[neufuse Veteran]

This is interesting, no wonder. Its one of the reasons why I have put off my purchase on an iMac Core Duo, the other is the Core Duo does not have any 64-bit Extensions. But here's the question thats bothering me, Windows XP Professional x64 supports EFI, it should at least be bootable then display a warning message about the processor not being 64 bit enabled.

The 64bit loader wont even load on a 32-bit system, so that won't work trying

[Veedems Veteran]

Who would buy a macbook and want to install a Windows OS? I'm a Windows user through and through, but if I bought a mac, there's only one OS I'd be running on it and it sure as hell isn't Windows.

[neufuse Veteran]

Who would buy a macbook and want to install a Windows OS? I'm a Windows user through and through, but if I bought a mac, there's only one OS I'd be running on it and it sure as hell isn't Windows.

personally I'd want what ever OS I want on my system, I never liked the idea of being tied to OSX on a mac (sure you could use linux, but 2 os is still a limit) since there are more OS's for intel being able to boot other os's is a good thing, and the fact MS has Mac's up and running windows Vista says this is possible, and thus gives us choice in the end of what we run on Apple's over priced computers.. but the real idea behind this post is the fact people are screaming mac's wont boot EFI well they are trying to boot on something that doesn't even have a working boot loader on it to start with for EFI so just trying to clear things up here

[Simon Veteran]

Wow, and there are people who have quit work to find out that what they were working on sooooo hard didn't work because EFI just wasn't on Vista yet. Ouch.

Slight exaggeration on quitting work, but I'm sure you see my point.

[Tungsten T]

I think MCE 2005 has EFI

[neufuse Veteran]

I think MCE 2005 has EFI

MCE 2005 does not have a EFI boot loader on the CD, it does have an EFI boot loader when installed though but just like in vista, its disabled... just because the EFI folder is there doesn't mean it boots with EFI

[AshMan]

What is EFI?

[Rigby]

"Who would buy a macbook and want to install a Windows OS? I'm a Windows user through and through, but if I bought a mac, there's only one OS I'd be running on it and it sure as hell isn't Windows."

Uh, you do realize that you can run more than one operating system on a computer don't you? Just because you have Windows installed doesn't mean OS X is out. Being able to run Mac OS and Windows on the same computer without emulation for the first time ever seems like a pretty big even to me. You really don't see the attraction of being able to run OS X whenever you want but still boot into Windows to play games or run Windows software? I doubt anyone was talking about buying a Mac and running only Windows on it.

"What is EFI?

Extensible Firmware Interface. It's what Intel is replacing the ancient BIOS with (the one from 1981 that we all still use for some reason).

Edited January 25, 2006 by TRC

[Cyberkiller]

Just need to get Mac OSX running on any windows machine, then problem is solved. Buy a cheap dell laptop and load up os x on it.

Who really wants to spend all that money just because the laptop says apple on it?

[neufuse Veteran]

Just need to get Mac OSX running on any windows machine, then problem is solved. Buy a cheap dell laptop and load up os x on it.

Who really wants to spend all that money just because the laptop says apple on it?

problem is you cant do that yet... they dont support EFI yet, wait a year and then they wil only very few Intel boards support EFI at all

[jak0bk]

The Febuary CTP of Vista is supposed to be feature complete. It's supposed to have EFI enabled.

And to TRC:

The first post that you quoted went on to say that he could run OS X and Linux, but he wants even more choices and doesn't want to be locked to just those two. If you would read past the first sentence, you would see where he expands upon the initial, summarizing sentence (which is how you're supposed to write). So, chill out.

[akrazo32]

problem is you cant do that yet... they dont support EFI yet, wait a year and then they wil only very few Intel boards support EFI at all

I have a copy of Mac OSX running on my old dell....

[neufuse Veteran]

I have a copy of Mac OSX running on my old dell....

that'd be the developer edition which was hacked to start with and doesnt even have EFI on it

The Febuary CTP of Vista is supposed to be feature complete. It's supposed to have EFI enabled.

And to TRC:

The first post that you quoted went on to say that he could run OS X and Linux, but he wants even more choices and doesn't want to be locked to just those two. If you would read past the first sentence, you would see where he expands upon the initial, summarizing sentence (which is how you're supposed to write). So, chill out.

did you read my original post by MS? they said it would NOT be in Beta 2 complete... just because an OS is feature complete doesn't mean it's a complete OS... i know makes no sense but feature complete is only completition of code for features they list as mandatory... EFI isn't mandatory yet They said sometime after beta 2 EFI would be turned on and also support for recognizing Blu-Ray discs (recog. not play!) would be added later! so the feb CTP will NOT have EFI like they said and beta 2 also will not have it enabled..

[akrazo32]

that'd be the developer edition which was hacked to start with and doesnt even have EFI on it

Oh i know that, i was just saying that becasue CyberKiller didnt say anything about EFI, he just said getting mac to run on a dell.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Who would buy a macbook and want to install a Windows OS? I'm a Windows user through and through, but if I bought a mac, there's only one OS I'd be running on it and it sure as hell isn't Windows.

Really? I know plenty of people that would be interested in doing just that.

[Malisk]

Who would buy a macbook and want to install a Windows OS? I'm a Windows user through and through, but if I bought a mac, there's only one OS I'd be running on it and it sure as hell isn't Windows.

I think the point for many isn't to run just Windows on them (although I can see people do it for the design), but to run both.

Think of a scenario with for example Windows as a game platform, with OS X for the rest. Full speed, no emulation layers, same box!

This route would also likely be a legal one too, as opposed to the hacked developer builds.

OS X + Vista on a slick Intel Core system sounds pretty appealing to me at least, maybe even moreso than Windows + Linux in the same scenario. :)

Edited January 27, 2006 by Jugalator

[andrewhaji]

OS X + Vista on a slick Intel Core system sounds pretty appealing to me at least

Amen to that! I can't wait...but I guess I'll have to, at least until Vista RTMs (and until I can afford a new laptop).

[neufuse Veteran]

Amen to that! I can't wait...but I guess I'll have to, at least until Vista RTMs (and until I can afford a new laptop).

I like how their laptops are small and their design is better then most of the intel based ones out there right now...thats the only reason i'd get a mac right now... but i'd want to use windows and mac os x personally...